Objective

If no treatment reverses fiber formation, fibers will be extracted from 50:1 and 110:1 ratios to expose them directly to each treatment.

If a treatment reverses fiber formation, it will be investigated further in order to find the smallest amount of the variable that can be added to solution in order to cause fiber degradation.

More treatments of 2,2 bipyridine will be prepped to see if ability to precipitate fibers is observed again.

Synthesize 110:1, 50:1, and 40:1 lysozyme-AuNPs

Synthesize 100:1 BSA-AuNPs and test various treatments.

Procedure

Creating Stock Solutions of Gold, Lysozyme, and BSA

As seen below, each stock solution was created following the calculations in the table.

Each solution was created using a volumetric flask and deionized water.

Synthesizing Lysozyme-AuNPs and BSA-AuNPs

As seen below, each solutions was created using the following calculations.

We made five tubes of each ratio.

Images

CHES Desired pH 9; Looks like control. The only deviation is exhibited ion the 110:1 ratio in which the fibers appear redder. This is either due to more fibers being formed or could be the breakdown of the fibers due to the increased color of the solution.

Phosphate Desired pH 7; Has allowed AuNP's to fall out of solution to form fibers for all ratios.

Actual pH for Treatments

HEPES Desired pH 7; Looks similar to the controls. 40:1 appears less pink but doesn't appear to have visible fibers. 110:1 ratio much like CHES has become redder than the control.

Citric Acid Desired pH 3; Looks like the phosphate ratios. Has allowed AuNP's to fall out of solution to form fibers for all ratios.

TRIS Desired pH 9; Looks like the CHES ratios. Looks like control. The only deviation is exhibited ion the 110:1 ratio in which the fibers appear redder. This is either due to more fibers being formed or could be the breakdown of the fibers due to the increased color of the solution.

Actual pH for Treatments

MES pH 5; Caused all AuNP's to fall out of solution to form fibers.

EDTA; Looks very similar to the controls; however, the fibers became more red in the 50:1 with fibers and the 110:1.

EGTA; Looks very similar to the controls; however, the fibers became more red in the 50:1 with fibers and the 110:1.

Actual pH for Treatments

2,2 bipyridine caused all AuNP's to fall out of solution to form fibers.

Salicylic Acid wasn't that much different than the controls; however, the 50:1 with fibers and the 110:1 sample the fibers appeared more red.

Sodium Chloride caused all fibers to fall out of solution. The fibers weren't that abundant.

Actual pH for Treatments

Note that the 50:1 ratio without fibers wasn't available for this test.

Potassium Chloride caused all fibers to fall out of solution. What is odd is the fibers don't seem numerous.

Calcium Chloride caused all fibers to fall out of solution. What is odd is the fibers don't seem numerous.

Magnesium Chloride caused all fibers to fall out of solution. What is odd is the fibers don't seem numerous.

Actual pH for Treatments

Chloroform; Looks very similar to the controls. This samples was a little odd because we originally thought chloroform was water soluble. It isn't. As a result a separation of layers was observed, and the fibers wouldn't go into the chloroform layer.

1,4 Dioxane' No change from the controls were observed.

Hydrochloric Acid allowed all AuNP's to fall out of solution to form fibers.

Actual pH for Treatments

DMSO has no measurable differences from the controls.

DMF has no measurable differences from the controls.

Acetone has no measurable differences from the controls.

SDS looked slightly different. In the 50:1 ratio with fibers and the 110:1 ratio the fibers appeared redder than the controls an more abundant. Perhaps this is the beginning of the fibers going back into solution?

Actual pH for Treatments

Notes

There are two samples of 50:1 because one set of samples made fibers, whereas the other did not. This can be seen in the controls. We believe this occurred because between ratios 40:1 and 50:1 the changeover to fibers occurs very quickly. As a result, even measurements slightly off could switch the balance. Due to this point this is why we've decided to change our AuNP's ratios in order to stay a little bit further away from this turning point.